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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347128">If all Things Were Good</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmbird/pseuds/Elmbird'>Elmbird</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Stranger Things (TV 2016)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Bisexual Steve Harrington, Bittersweet, Closeted Character, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Gay Billy Hargrove, M/M, POV Billy Hargrove</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 08:15:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,657</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24347128</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elmbird/pseuds/Elmbird</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Billy still flirts with moms just not Steve’s.  Joan Harrington does more than tolerate Billy, she has a passive interest in him. Talks to him in much the same way she does to Steve. Asks him surface level questions about himself, remembers his answers and then the next time they see each other asks more of the same polite questions that never really lead anywhere. Giving him the feeling that she both knows him and doesn’t all at the same time. She’s a strange bird but not unkind.</p><p>------</p><p>A story touching on Billy's relationship with Steve's mom.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>132</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>If all Things Were Good</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is set in the mid to late 80s. In keeping with that era Billy and Steve are closeted but out to a few select people including Steve's mom. </p><p>I see this as being a continuation of another work of mine, This is Real but also it stands alone. You don't need to read the other to read this one.</p><p>I hope you enjoy this story. I challenged myself to tell it in three thousand words and only went over  by six hundred words sooooo... is less more? IDK I couldn't help myself.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p> </p><p>Billy still flirts with moms just not Steve’s. Joan Harrington does more than tolerate Billy, she has a passive interest in him. Talks to him in much the same way she does to Steve. Asks him surface level questions about himself, remembers his answers and then the next time they see each other asks more of the same polite questions that never really lead anywhere. Giving him the feeling that she both knows him and doesn’t all at the same time. She’s a strange bird but not unkind.</p><p>The first time she takes them out to lunch it’s to a fancy place with folded cloth napkins that match the table cloth, a kind of mint green. Billy and Steve have been in the city for a month having moved the first of January. Their apartment is mostly unpacked. Half of what they have for furniture came from the Harrington’s house back in Hawkins.</p><p>The menu has a few things he doesn’t recognize. Billy has the charm and self-confidence to navigate most situations, including this one, despite his blue collar upbringing. He orders after Steve and Mrs. Harrington. Making his choice based of what they order. Chooses the Duck Ragu having half an idea what it is, knowing there is pasta in the mix. </p><p>He is aware that he might not be holding his fork and knife like he should but it’s not worth the trouble of caring, the dish is too good to be bothered by it. If Joan notices she doesn’t say anything just smiles politely at him, asks if he and Steve would like dessert. </p><p>Over all the lunch in painless. There is the expected amount of awkwardness between the three of them. The worst of it when Mrs. Harrington asks if Steve has given any thought of going to work for his dad. Billy knows the answer, thinks that she does too but she’s asking one more time just to make sure. With the Harrington’s divorce almost finalized she probably doesn’t want Steve to get cut off. </p><p>Over dessert Joan pulls out a small leather bound calendar from her purse wants to pencil in another lunch date.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>It becomes a things, once a month the two of them go and have lunch with Steve’s mom. Billy has to admit he’s surprised when the conversations don’t become tired. She likes to hear about their lives and what it is they are doing. Takes an equal interest in both of them.</p><p>She knows they are living together as more than friends, has know since before they moved to Chicago that what they are is a couple. So Billy tries, doesn’t write her off. He tries using his charm to get her to talk about herself. Open up. His smile is never flirting just a little warmer, more inviting. She doesn’t bite.</p><p>Her way of changing the conversation is to simple asks a new question, redirects. </p><p>One spring day on their walk back to the apartment after they’d had lunch with her Billy asks Steve about.</p><p>He bumps Steve’s shoulder with his as they walk, getting his attentions before asking “Why do you think she does that?”</p><p>“What does she do?” He questions</p><p>“That thing that she does where she steers the conversation away from herself.”</p><p>Steve kicks at the curb while they wait for a walk sign. The air smells like trees about to bloom, green leafs ready to be on display. “Yeah - I don’t know. My dad partially and maybe the way she was brought up. I guess her family was pretty strict but even that she’s never really talked about.”</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The restaurant they are at is little rich for Billy’s taste, but then who is he to judge. It’s just him and Joan. Billy could have backed out of going to lunch with her on his own if he wanted to.</p><p>Steve is skipping this one, is worried about a math test, which is a first. Pretty boy is taking a couple classes, actually cares about his grades this time around. Billy gets it, school is different when you’re not forced to go.</p><p>Most of what makes pretty boy pretty he got from her; jawline, dark hair, the eye color and shape. She carries her beauty with ease where it translates to boy next door charm with Steve.</p><p>He’s a little surprised when Joan admits that she much rather get dessert from the ice cream shop around the corner, breaking the structure of their usual lunch dates.</p><p>Summer heat radiates off the asphalt. The windy city isn’t doing shit to live up to its name today. What Billy would give for a breeze or for the ocean. The ice cream they eat in the shade only offers so much relief. </p><p>Joan strikes up a conversation with the man sitting next to them who’s giving the last of his ice cream cone to his dog, a big bushy thing. She asks if it is a show dog, knowing what breed it is. That’s how Billy gets her to talk about herself the first time.</p><p>She confesses while finishing her ice cream, “I grew up with dogs. When I married Steven’s father he was up and coming at the firm. There were too many responsibilities for us to have a pet of any sort.”</p><p>He raises an eyebrow and grins at her. “Seems to me you don’t have any of those pesky responsibilities any more.”</p><p>A smile tugs at her mouth, much in the same way one does at Steve’s. “And what about the two fo you?”</p><p>There she goes Billy thinks. “A pet? No, not right now. The women who owns the building is real strict about that sort of thing anyways.”</p><p>“Don’t tell me you haven’t worked your charm with her yet.” Joan quips back. Voice lightly teasing.</p><p>Her response forces and honest laugh out of Billy, “Mrs. Harrington, I was hoping you thought better of me.” He purrs with a friendly smile on his face.</p><p>
  
</p><p> </p><p>A month later Billy and Steve are over to Joan’s apartment to meet Kip, a tiny black and white thing that eyes are the definition of, <em>puppy dog eyes</em>. Joan and Billy have different ideas of what a dog is. His doesn’t include breeds named after kings. The thing is little. No, he gets that it is a puppy but it’s really small and wiggly. It wiggled so much when they first arrived it peed on the floor.</p><p>While the weather holds lunch dates with Joan turn into park dates. She brings sandwiches and show him and Steve what new tricks Kip has learned. He comes when you calls his name, can fetch, has knack for carrying sticks twice his size and half the time he’ll shake when you ask him too. Joan loves him. He is clever enough to be all right in Billy’s book.</p><p>When she takes a trip to Italy in the late fall Kip comes to stay with Steve and him at their place. For two weeks they sneak him in and out of their building tucked underneath their jackets or stowed away in a bag. The kids in apartment 2C catch on but agree to keep quiet about it in exchange for getting a play date with Kip who is still more of a puppy than a dog.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The lunches continue becoming more of a weekly thing. Fall turns to winter and that’s when the windy city really lives up to its name. The cold is biting and wind dominating.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Christmas is spent with Joan at her apartment where everything matches or was bought with something else in mind for it to be paired with. The palette is beige and navy with details of gold. Her gifts are too much, both expensive and thoughtful. Billy’s present to her is a travel book on Paris. She mentioned wanting to spend a week there next summer. She reaches over to squeeze his hand when she thanks him. The open warmth of the gesture surprising. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Steve’s aunt Dotty comes to town in February. Dotty is the outcast of the Harrington family. Both Steve and Joan like her for it, they tell Billy as much each in their own way.</p><p>Over dinner she keeps Billy's and Steve’s wine glasses full, waves a friendly hand at Joan to quiet her protest. States that the the boys got the shit end of the stick, the legal drinking age having just changed from eighteen to twenty-one the year before.</p><p>From his perch in the window Billy watches as a fairly drunk Steve has a conversation with his mother as he stand in the kitchen with her, eating a second slice of cake while she dries the dishes. He catches the mannerisms that they share. Littles things that Steve himself probably isn’t even aware come from her.</p><p>It makes him think of his own mother. Wonders what imprints of her are still left on him all these years later. He takes a heavy drag from the cigarette pinch between his fingers. Exhales the pain of that thought out with the smoke.</p><p>Joan sends them home with the left overs. They take a cab. Steve falls asleep on his shoulder, if the cabbie notices he doesn’t say anything. </p><p> </p><p> </p><p>“You will have time to take it to Steven before you need to be back? Joan questions as she turns her hand over to check the time, the small watch face sits on the inside of her wrist.</p><p>Billy almost suggests she do it but stops at his own hesitation. Encouraging her todrop off soup to her sick son might only highlight the distance that still exists between the two of them. They’re noticeably closer than they were a year ago but they both still second guess that closeness. Billy tries not to let it irritate him.</p><p>He walks her to the corner and waits for the cab to arrives that was called for her before they left the restaurant. Reassures her that he has time to kill before needing to be back for his class later in the afternoon. She leaves for Paris in a week, brought the small book he gave her for Christmas to lunch, pages marked with tabs as reminders of the galleries or markets she’d like to visit while there. With perfectly manicured nails pointed to the description of those place for him to read.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Billy bought lunch this time something Joan doesn’t usually let him or Steve do. He picked up sandwiches from a deli, dill pickles resting on top of thick brown bread speared with toothpicks to keep them in place.She eats her with quiet grace and Billy with his usual gusto for food. He’s never been a delicate eater.She plucks a bit of turkey from her sandwich and feeds it to Kip. Billy’s not as generous.</p><p>They agree that it’s too bad Steve had to work, the day is nice. This kind of weather becoming less likely as the month stretches out. Summer having faded away into the start of a warm fall. When they’re finished Billy offers to walk Joan back to her apartment taking Kip’s leash. They talk about how he is getting on at his new job and if he will still have time to teach swimming lesson.</p><p>The truth is he wants to do both. Could loose the job at the at the club teaching kids how to swim but he wants the money. For what, he doesn’t know. Billy guess he is saving for something - for more of a future with Steve. Would buy him a ring if that was a thing that could happen. Would have married Steve the moment he turned eighteen, which feels like a life time ago but is actually less than three years ago.</p><p>It’s abrupt the sudden presence of a women Joan clearly recognizes. The woman stops them on the sidewalk. Her greeting is overly cheerful, fake, smile wide like a clown’s. The way Joan is holding herself tells Billy she feels the same way.</p><p>The woman eyes him. Makes a show of taking in his hair cut, the earring dangling from his ear and leather jacket he’s got on. Something cold behind her eyes. The only reason Billy has patience for this shit is because Joan knows her.</p><p>After the exchange of greetings Joan lays her hand on his forearm, the touch so light he can barley feel it through his leather jacket. She introduces him. “This is Billy Hargrove, he is good friends with Steve.”</p><p>The women, Billy lets her name go in one ear and out the other, she says to him “My husband and Steve’s father work together.” Then with a smug smile turns to Joan and asks. “I’ve heard that Steve’s been in the city for well over a year. When will he be joining the family business?” </p><p>“Almost two years.” Joan corrects. “We do live in modern time. Steve is making his own path and doing well at it.” Polite but cutting. The words are delivered with the class the other women thinks she has.</p><p>Kip pulls on the leash, ready to keep moving. Joan uses it to their advantage, saying they must be going. </p><p>When they are out of earshot Joan says to him. “That women gives me a headache.”</p><p>Billy asks with a sharp smile, “Was it her perfume or general attitude?”</p><p>She give a short laugh before admitting, “Both, I’m afraid.”She mentions while taking his arm as they continue on. “The perfume really was something. My head, I’ll have to take something for it."</p><p>The conversation changes over to Dotty who is in town for the rest of the week. Joan talks about their evening plans, dinner and then a show maybe cocktails after. Billy teases her, asks how much trouble they’re planning on getting into. </p><p>They stop short of the entrance to her building, the doorman oblivious to them. Billy hands Kip’s leashes to her.</p><p>There is something Billy’s got to know. All these months, almost two years, it’s a question that been building over that time. Running into that woman maybe has something to do with why he feels like he has to asks it now, the way she looked him over. Why Joan has never looked at him that way.</p><p>What he’s about to ask, breaks a certain unspoken code. People who are well off never like to have their attention drawn to how much they have and what others don’t. To have the class difference highlighted in that way.</p><p>He licks over his teeth, the bite of emotion he is feeling, he feels this when he cares about something or someone. He has learned to roll with that emotion, not try and fight it like he did when he was younger, angrier. He asks, “Why do you have so much of an interest in me?”</p><p>Joan looks up from searching through her purse for her keys. Her smile is warm, unguarded. After a pause she says, “Knowing you has allowed me to know my son better. You are an important part of his life. And I am glad that you are.”</p><p>All Billy can do is smile and nod, the lump in his throat is too great.</p><p>She thanks him for lunch. He stands back, watches her walk into her building with Kip trotting along beside her.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>The rain slapping the window is relentless. They chose not to go out tonight, they both have early mornings and it’s not worth venturing out into the downpour. Billy has sunk into the cushions of the couch, feet kicked up into Steve’s lap, limbs relaxed. The screen of the television casting them in the colors it flashes as the scene of a courtroom drama unfolds.</p><p>The ring of the telephone bounces off the walls and echos into the living room from the kitchen. No one calls this late unless it’s one of the shitheads. Within the time it takes for Billy to swing his legs off of Steve and stretch his arms over his head they’ve already had a full conversations about which one it could be.</p><p>Not Henderson, Steve talked to him over the weekend. El and Mike came down a couple weeks ago with the Chief before the start of school. Wouldn’t be Will, he’s got Jonathan or Nancy to call. So It has to be Lucas or Max which means Billy has to get the phone. His money is on Lucas. He talked to Maxine earlier in the week and she mentioned being irritated with him. Sometimes Sinclair calls to ask Billy if he’s talked to Max recently. He will say something like, <em>Man to man, I need to know how mad she is at me. </em>Sometimes Billy likes to fuck with him, simply answer back, <em>You’re in deep shit, amigo.</em></p><p>He rounds the corner into the kitchen and picks up the ringing phone with a flick of the wrist.</p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>From the other end of the line comes a shaky exhale of breath. Billy know right away that it’s a women, it’s too soft and high for it be a man or any of the nerds. He can feel confusion touching his face, pulling at his brow.</p><p>“Billy? This is Billy right?” It takes a second to recognize that the voice is Dotty’s. After that the sinking feeling is immediate. His heart drops to his stomach.</p><p>This is one of those bad moments that can’t be made good. Understands that he knows what is coming but doesn’t all at the same time.</p><p>“How bad?” He asks because he needs to know before Steve gets curious about who is calling, because he’d rather it be him who is the bearer of bad news than Dotty.</p><p>Another shaky exhale comes over the line, “She’s gone.” Her voice breaks over the words.</p><p>Pulse buzzes in his ears as a numbness creeps through his limbs he listens, half hears.</p><p>  <em> She was late.</em></p><p>
  <em>      She’s never late. You know that.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>         I have a key - I let myself in. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>            I - she was dressed to go out.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>               Just laying there</em>
</p><p>
  <em>                  She looked liked she was sleeping…</em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>They stay with Susan. The house Steve grew up in sold over a year ago, has a whole new family living it it, actually living in it. All the bedrooms slept in. Which seems strange. Billy’s always associated that house with emptiness. Knows Steve does too.</p><p>The funeral is as nice as a funeral can be, classy but understated like Joan would have wanted it. The weather holds out and people show up, both family, friends and members of the community. The number not surprising, she was well respected.</p><p>Those attending stand at a distance behind the closed beige casket in rows while Steve and Mr. Harrington stand removed, closer to the priest. Faces solemn, they don’t look or talk to each other.</p><p>Billy is at the end of the row that included both the Byers and Wheeler siblings. Before the priest starts the service, next to him Nancy takes a small step to the side then another until he has to take one, and then she does it again helping move him closer to Steve. There is still more than an arms length of distance between them but it is better than before, that little bit closer helping. He is sure the gossip tomorrow will be that Nancy Wheeler threw herself at Billy Hargrove while at Joan Harrington’s funeral.</p><p>He turns his head, thanks her with a somber smile and tight nod, really giving the the gossip hounds of Hawkins something to talk about.</p><p>At the country club where lunch is served after, there are whispers of how young she was, gone too soon. Billy hears a man, one of the three doctors that Hawkins has explains in a hushed voice what a brain aneurysm to a nerves busybody of a women. </p><p>Billy watches as Steve with dead eyes and a ghost of a polite smile thanks everyone for coming as he makes his way around the room. He catches those mannerisms, sees them, the ones that pretty boy probably doesn’t realize came from Joan.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>Steve sits quietly, eyes still red from crying. Never did it in front of any of the funeral goers or his prick of a dad. Would excuse himself to go to the bathroom and shut himself in a stall. Billy would wait for him on the other side of the door.</p><p>They could have gone back to Susan’s afterwards but they came to the quarry instead, brought Kip with them, his is their’s now. Turns out Billy will have to use his charm with the landlord after all.</p><p>The night carries the same warm breeze of the day. The windows of the Camaro are rolled down letting it pass through. Give it a month and the school kids will be counting down the days until Halloween, the warm days being a thing of the past.</p><p>He doesn’t try to hold Steve, not sure that’s what he needs right now, maybe later, when they crawl into bed together but not right now.</p><p>In his own way he knows this pain and that’s all he can speak to. So he does. For the first time he tells Steve about his own mother. About the women who he gets his looks from, about her love of the ocean and how she watched him learn to surf. Tells about when things got bad right before she left, not in detail but more than he’s said before.</p><p>Somewhere during his talking Steve takes his hand, holds tight.</p><p>Billy tells about the good and the bad. Finally understanding the importance of both. When he is finishes he lets his head lull back against the headrest. He looks Steve in the eyes when he says, <em>if it was all good it wouldn’t hurt so much.</em> And somehow that makes sense. </p><p> </p><p> </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for taking the time to read this! Feedback always makes me happy. Feel free to leave a comment and let me know what you thought of it.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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